Cecilio Kranz had been born and raised a navy man.

His mother and father had both been officers, though the latter had belonged to the Royal Marine Corps. As a child, he’d grown up in anchorages and military bases, the scenery changing with every promotion and change of post.

With space in his blood, he’d joined the navy and tried to make a life out of it. Unfortunately, the wants of the nobility outweighed the merits of the common man. He was passed over for promotions, had his credit stolen by blue-blooded morons with half his brains and nearly court-martial for questioning the judgement of a noble-born superior officer -in private!-.

How that had led to him leading a rebellion against the ‘old nation’ was a question he himself couldn’t answer, but he held great pride in his role. Which meant that even on such a shitty day, he walked with a steady gait through the corridors of his flagship.

The Obelisk was an old lass, but she was a prime example of the saying ‘they build things better back in the day’. Say what you will about the Hegemony, they built their ships like no other. Of course, having a one-point-five kilometer battleship was different to being able to maintain it…

Just as his musings began to take a dark turn, a chime sounded from the intercom on his office table.

“Yes?” He asked.

“It’s Captain Doss, Admiral.” His secretary explained.

“Let him in, lieutenant.” Admiral Kranz said, rubbing his temples. ‘What fresh hell brought him here now?’

A moment later, the door to his office opened and in walked Mateo Doss, his chief of staff. Yet instead of worried, furious or terrified, the unassuming man looked confused.

“What’s going on, Captain? Did another cache get found out?” Kranz asked, gesturing to the unoccupied seat in front of his office. “Take a seat.”

Captain Emilio Doss sat down, letting out a sigh. “One of our ISR corvettes out near the jump point to the Nimbus system got a hit.”

Kranz’s eyebrows jumped.

“How are they bringing in more ships from there? I don’t think they have anything more than a couple of frigates, right?”

Emilio raised his right index finger, prompting Kranz to stop.

“They aren’t bringing in more ships; they are sending them to Nimbus…and maybe further than that.”

“Elaborate.”

“ONI’s codebreakers got lucky with the rotating password scheme the royalists are using, and we managed to get a bunch of stuff. Nothing particularly critical, save for the following.”

The captain slid a PDA across the desk.

“A royalist naval task force reportedly chased a group of escaping penal workers to the Pollux system, six standard weeks ago. They’ve yet to return, and since the republican stock market crashed there have been perilously few traders passing through, so we have no idea what’s going on.”

Admiral Kranz nodded. The last year or so had seen the lowest number of trade convoys since the Second War of Reclamation. The freshest news they had from out-kingdom was ten weeks old.

“So, what, they’re sending a scouting party?”

“More than that. ONI’s analysts suspect the royalist authorities in Nimbus are afraid of a revolt. And with our recent defeats and logistics issues, they had the ships to spare for a small task force.”

“Define ‘small’.” Kranz asked, leaning in.

“Half of the Predator squadron.”

“The…what? Why would they send them?” The admiral asked. “Those ships are some of the most veteran in their entire damn navy, right behind the Capitol Garrison…wait.” His eyes widened in realization. “No, even they aren’t that stupid…right?”

Captain Doss grinned. “It appears so. We suspect a feud is developing between the commander of Predator Squadron and the royalist high command. They are sending as much of the squadron as they can spare out to the boondocks for a couple of months until they can find a proper way to curb their influence.”

Kranz remained silent for several moments, pondering on an appropriate response. This was good; the infamous Commodore Troya’s forces would be weakened for several weeks, time during which the Republican Engineer Corps could rebuild the caches and automated factories those ships had blown to smithereens in the past few weeks.

The easiest path was doing nothing. The royalists had just removed a portion of their navy from the system of their own volition, effectively wiping whatever advantage they’d gained from the thousands of tons of supplies Predator Squadron had destroyed.

But if Kranz had taken the easiest path his entire life, the revolution would’ve never happened and he would still be kowtowing to the pompous pricks and sociopaths of the King’s Court.

“Who can we send after them?”

Doss’s eyes twitched. “After them, sir? You wish to ambush them?”

“No!” Kranz facepalmed. “I want somebody to keep an eye on them, maybe even harass them. If we send a big enough force to take those guys out, the royalists will see it and mobilize their entire wall of battle to come and wreck what’s left while we’re weakened.”

The truth was, they didn’t have any big hitters to spare. While they held the advantage in numbers, the royalists had control over the majority of capital ships. The handful in Kranz’s arsenal had only been granted to commoner captains by virtue of the late crown prince’s stillborn reformation efforts.

Captain Doss hummed. “We do have something. One of our Scout-class light cruisers is slated to leave drydock in a couple of days, but we could have it launch in hours.”

“Excellent.”

—

The LRS Tomahawk cruised quietly through the void, her crew keeping their eyes peeled for the enemy.

They were in deep space, far away from the myriad of satellites, moons and asteroids oft-used to scramble hostile sensors. The closest friendly task force to their own was hours away on a direct intercept course, but that was thankfully the same for the enemy’s units.

“Status on Bandit Group Three?” Captain Luca Bosetti asked.

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“He must’ve noticed us, sir. Those ships are getting a broadside view of our drive plume, so they definetely have us on thermals -at the very least-.”

The sensor officer’s report was greeted with a short acknowledgment by the veteran. ‘As expected.’

Even during these short luls between battle, there were ongoing skirmishes, raids and infiltrations between them and the inbreds. BG-3’s four destroyers were far too busy defending their charges; a chain of asteroid mining and refining bases that would’ve made for a juicy target were they left undefended.

So the Tomahawk continued on its path to the jump point, each sailor counting the hours, minutes and seconds down until they crossed into hyperspace. There was a certain dread to approaching an unsecure jump point, knowing that warships could appear out of the blue at any moment.

Yet their worries, much to the sailors’ joy, were disproved. The light cruiser approached the jump point and engaged its hyperdrive without a hitch. Several seconds of itchy teeth and smelling ruberries later, they arrived in Nimbus.

At just a red dwarf star surrounded by a single volcanic world and a thick asteroid belt, the place wasn’t much to write home about. The only useful export was refined minerals, mined and processed by penal colony stations established decades ago.

Bosetti and his crew had once been part of a convoy raid targeting just those exports. Yet the loss in production by the inbreds’ slave factories had been deemed far too expensive; ships were simply of more use inside the Leonis system rather than fighting in the kingdom’s other territories.

Both factions’ focus on the Leonis system had drawn the ships stationed in the outer territories back home, effectively putting an end to large-scale conflict outside of said system.

At least, that was supposed to have happened. Evidence pointed to other conclusions.

Evidence like an unfolding battle, within the confines of the nimbian kuiper belt.

—

James had been born at a time of peace and stability, and his father had wanted him to inherit it. Unlike his grandfather, an imperial admiral-made-noble who had always been a warlord at heart, his father had been a keen administrator and excellent diplomat who had no peers at the negotiation table.

Post-exile, he’d followed in his father’s steps in an attempt to make up for the time lost during the war. For the first time in a decade the dynasty was at peace, and every day he grew further from his grandfather and closer to his father’s role.

All of that was gone now.

“Admiral, the enemy is changing course!” The flag bridge’s sensor officer reported. “Enemy ships are turning their bows towards us, they’ve activated their fire control radars!”

“So much for stealth…” He muttered, grinning. “All ships to activate Fire Plan Bravo and move to combat intercept, maximum acceleration.”

Looking down at the tactical table, he smothered a chuckle. The odds were in their favour, but he wasn’t about to celebrate before the game was over.

“Well, the ambush had been a long shot.” Captain Noriega spoke.

“Agreed. Their sensors were better than intelligence suggested.” Commander Smith pointed out. “Had we conducted a cold launch, they would’ve been spooked minutes earlier and we would’ve had to chase them a lot longer.”

“Unfortunate, but hardly debilitating.” James said, inspecting the battle map.

On paper, the odds were just barely in their favour. The lionsguard task force numbered some two cruisers and three frigates, while their own comprised of some one battlecruiser, one cruiser and three destroyers.

But the universe liked to joke, and this time the leonian royalists were caught in the punchline.

James’ warships bloomed like deadly flowers, shooting out swarms of missiles. A single destroyer could launch some twenty-four birds per salvo, and a cruiser or battlecruiser could do many more than that. Nearly two hundred missiles, all equipped with laserheads.

The lionsguard responded in kind a few seconds later, fire control radars holding solid locks over his ships. And yet for all of their surprisingly advanced FCR tech, the ships weren’t up to par in terms of firepower. Nearly three hundred missiles launched…but they were hardly enough.

Ten years of war had tempered akritan missile design to a carefully maintained balance of power, maneuverability and cost. Compared to a standardized Falcon missile, the royalists’ weapons were visibly lacking.

“They’re slow, sir. Too slow.” Smith noted, and had the man not been special in his own way he would be grinning like a madman. “And their penetration aids are hardly worth the name. The Circe will make short work of them without trouble.”

Unlike the flicks and the vids, which portrayed a bridge as a chaotic room full of screaming officers with veins bulging out of their foreheads, the real thing was much more reserved…yet real combat was visceral in its own right.

The battlegroup’s missile defenses stood as one, hundreds of sensors and computers tracking targets and calculating trajectories that were then assigned to laser clusters, point defense cannons and countermissile batteries.

The distance between attacker and attacked only grew shorter, and each’s defenses grew more accurate. Unfortunately for the enemy, akritan defenses were better. Weapon operators were trained, commanders were cool-headed and maintainance crews knew exactly how to take care of systems refined from crude prototypes into lean, mean, killing machines.

“Antimissiles away., FCR maintains solid lock on vampires.” Smith reported.

The Gauntlet antimissile was a trustworthy, if rather aged, platform. It made up for its lacking onboard sensor package with high-bandwith laser guidance systems, which made it both cheap and small enough to fit in a Raider-class in spades.

‘Four more minutes.’ James thought as he examined the trajectory of their own missiles.

The enemy had yet to launch their own counter-missiles, for reasons known only to them. The examples found in the two captured frigates had subpar warheads and manufacturing quality but were otherwise rather serviceable. Maybe stocks were running low?

Or…akritan penetration aids were proving too strong for their sensors. Flares, jaff, active jamming and radar-dispersion technologies were some of the many pen-aids used by modern akritan missiles, to deadly effect. The R&D costs had been massive -they could’ve funded a squadron of battlecruisers- but the actual manufacturing cost was relatively small and the effect was truly staggering.

Vogdi warships, notoriously bad for their long and medium range missile defenses, had been caught with their pants down. They’d made up for their weakness with numbers and sheer weight of firepower, but that didn’t stop its designers and users from beaming with pride.

“Second salvo is ready, Admiral.” Smith reported.

“Launch.” James replied immediately, his eyes never leaving the battle map.

Countermissiles struck at the lionsguard birds. As the survivors flew closer, laser defenses got more accurate and kinetic batteries spooled up. Though the latter’s range was small, their effect was truly devastating.

By the time the battlegroup’s PDCs opened fire, there were only thirty-five vampires still alive and maintaining a lock. Within seconds that was reduced to less than a dozen, but it was hardly enough.

The Vanguard’s Hymn shook, subdued alarms blaring into life.

“Damage control, report.” James demanded.

The damage control officer reported seconds later. “Laserhead impacts in fore section, partial penetration. Missile tube F3 is disabled, ten to fifteen casualties and KIA. Damage control teams en route, minimal loss of combat capability.”

With a grim acknowledgement of the crewmen’s sacrifice, he turned back to the fleet-wide picture. Thankfully, it appeared most other hits had been shrugged off by the ships’ shields and armor belts. One of his destroyers had a coilgun battery slagged by a penetrating hit -taking the entire gun crew with it- but no other casualties were reported.

‘Now let’s see what scars we gave the enemy.’

“Multiple impacts on enemy vessels.” Smith noted. “Estimating some twenty-nine missiles detonated succesfully.”

“Stars, they’ve got meltdowns…” Noriega muttered.

James nodded, looking over the sensor data.

Crippling damage throughout the enemy fleet.

One of the two cruisers -barely capable of being called that by akritan standards- had been annihilated entirely while another had lost most of its propulsion and was emitting no active sensor noise. There were only two destroyers left in any form visible to the human eye, and one of them had been split in half by secondary detonations.

“Sir, we’ve entered dragonfire range.” Smith informed him, his eyes glinting with predatory glee.

“Very well. All ships, fire as you bear.”

Tiny lasers sprung out of spinal mounts and haulking turret barrels, pointing at the pitiful remnants of the enemy task force. Their power was tiny in the grand scheme of things, barely scorching the paint off the enemy ships’ hulls. But damage was not their job; they were merely clearing the path through the void of particles and micrometeorites.

What came next was invisible, yet oh-so-powerful.

Bursts of particles smaller than the human eye could see, accelerated to speeds so close to the speed of light as to fall under the ancient Laws of Relativity. Yet the mass-energy equation remained the same, and that was all that mattered.

Shields and armor shattered under the full weight of akritan dragonfire. There was no defense for these poor souls who’d strayed too close. The speed of the impact was so great that the surviving sailors hardly realized anything had been fired at them; a small mercy for the cloud of particles that had been a crew only seconds before.